Dear Darrel

interesting that Alfred North Whitehead have been the basis for arguing for an event ontology!

Anyway, you got the point.

The only thing where I cannot understand you is the "state ontology", which to me seems almost an oxymoron, since for me the state is a probability rule, and as a Bayesian, it is far from being an ontology.

But you can tell me more.

Thank you for your post.

Mauro

I can if you want go into this with greater detail. A good mathematics book is Conway & Sloane "Sphere Packing, Lattices and Groups." String theory constructs a partition function that is equivalent to the integer partition function, and in approximation the Hardy-Ramanujan function. These functions are connected to Jacobi theta function which are crucial to the mathematics of lattices and groups. While this has connections to string theory, it also is a theory of tesselations, which in four dimensions is LQG-ish in nature.

My thinking is this. String theory is incredibly rich and it would be very surprising if it had nothing to do with physics and cosmology. On the other hand LQG is too close to general relativity for it to be completely wrong as well. I have thought LQG might serve as some type of constraint in string/M-theory. As such these things are structures which we can work with with the intention of working towards a better theoretical and it is hoped an empirical understanding of the universe.

There is a bit of hostility beteen the string and loop camps. This little cartoon makes a bit of fun with the string-loop war.

Cheers LC

Hi Giacomo,

I have yet to read an essay which treats the question where all information comes from. If there would be only a single charged particle among uncharged particles in the universe, then it wouldn't be able to express its charge in interactions. As it in that case it cannot be charged itself, charge, or any property, for that matter, must be something which is shared by particles, something which only exists, is expressed and preserved within their interactions. If particles, particle properties (its) are both cause and effect of their interactions, of the exchange of bits, if particles only exist to each other if they interact, exchange information, then you cannot have one without the other nor can one be more fundamental than the other.

If particles cause, create one another, if not 'knowing' what properties to assume to survive, they evolve in a trial-and-error process, then the information as embodied in their properties and the associated laws of physics, their rules of behavior, can only evolve, survive and become actual information when tested in practice, in interactions between its carriers, between actual, physical, material particles, whatever 'material' may mean. If when particles are both cause and effect of their interactions, then a particle has no border separating some content, mass, say, from its effect on the environment, of its gravitational field, 'its' from bits so they aren't independent, then we cannot accuse one of being the cause of the other. As I discuss in my not very good essay, it's time to forget about causality as it is arguably the single most insurmountable obstacle to the progress of physics.

What strikes me in all the essays I read (also of previous contests) is that everybody, without exception, thinks about the universe as an object which has particular properties as a whole and evolves in time, as something we may imagine to look at from the outside. However, if a particle cannot exist, have properties if there's nothing outside of it to interact with, then the same must hold for the universe. The fallacy of Big Bang Cosmology (BBC) is that we can only speak about the properties and state of the universe if there's something outside of it, something it can interact with, and, like the charged particle its charge, something it owes its properties to: if it has been created by some outside intervention. For this reason BBC is an even worse 'theory' than creationism which at least honestly states that, yes, there is Someone outside of it Who created the universe. If a universe which creates itself out of nothing, without any outside intervention has to obey the conservation law which says that what comes out of nothing must add to nothing, then everything inside of it, including space and time must cancel, add to nil, meaning that it has no physical reality as a whole, as 'seen' from the outside, but only exists as seen from within. If in that case it doesn't make sense to speak about the properties it has or the state it is in as a whole, then it also makes no sense to make such statements from within. As I argued in a previous essay, this means that we can no longer conceive of the speed of light as the (finite) velocity light moves at, but that c just refers to a property of spacetime, which is something else entirely. In regarding the universe as an object we can imagine to look at from without, a Big Bang Universe (BBU) lives in a time realm not of its own making: as it is the same cosmic time everywhere, here it takes a photon time to travel so here c does refer to the velocity light moves at. In contrast, a Self-Creating Universe (SCU) does not live in a time realm not of its own making: as it contains and produces all time within, here clocks are observed to run slower as they are more distant even if they are at rest relative to the observer. As in a SCU it is not the same time everywhere, here a space distance is a time distance so in this universe a photon bridges any spacetime distance in no time at all, in contrast to a BBU where the photon covers a space distance in (a finite) time. The difference is as subtle as it is crucial to comprehend our universe. Evidently, in a universe where the communication between particles over any spacetime distance is instantaneous, things like the double-slit experiment, the EPR paradox become obvious. The problem is that nobody seems to be able to escape the essentially religious narrative of BBC and start to try to understand the universe from within. Frankly, I'm appalled that everybody takes the word of the saints of physics as a God's word instead of trying to see whether a different interpretation of observations might solve some of the most glaring contradictions of physics. Well, I have much more to say, for example, why it is general relativity which is flawed, not quantum mechanics, but this comment already is lengthy enough.

Regards, Anton

Dear Peter

thank you for your nice compliments and your thorough reading of my essay, and your suggestive post. I will look at your essay.

The only thing I want clarify here is what I mean for rigidity of QT. In the Pavia axiomatization (Chiribella, Perinotti and myself, http://pra.aps.org/abstract/PRA/v84/i1/e012311 open source) we derive QT from 6 axioms. Five of them holds also for Classical Theory, and are hard to change. The sixth axiom is hard to change in a way that gives a very different theory. We don't have a single toy theory which can account for what we see, at least in principle, and which is a small variation of QT.

Then, as regards the "mechanics", this definitely must emerge, if you want to reduce the number of your postulates.

Cheers

Mauro

Dear Anton,

on my point of view about causality there is something more in my long post to Matthew Leifer. Please, refer to it.

I read superficially your essay, and it is quite clear that we are on antithetical positions.

My best regards

Mauro

Dear Matt

QT has no logical coherence issues, but only interpretation problems, which are matter of personal opinion, and do not affect the logical foundation of the theory.

On the other hand, the relativity principle has a huge inherent logical problem, which is the simple fact that the most basic notion, i.e. the inertial frame, is not operationally defined, but is theory dependent, and, even worst, it depends on external theories. In order to know what are apparent forces you need to know which are the "real" ones, and, for that, you need to rely on an external theory. Unfortunately such a theory must be a TOE, since you must exclude any possible force. There is no single way of establishing that a system is inertial without referring to the fix stars reference system, and indeed this is what we do all the time. Einstein was well aware of this issue, and he was Machian at the beginning, and believed that his GR being Machian would have solved the problem. But, unfortunately, GR is not really Machian.

As most cosmologist admit, we have a preferred frame: the background radiation.

The issue of inertial frame makes the notion of inertial mass circularly defined. The second book of Max Jammer on mass provides a very thorough history of all attempts in defining inertial mass, all of them failed, for various reasons. Jammer concludes that there is a logical gap between kinematics and dynamics, and which can be closed only with a kinematical definition of inertial mass.

Quantum Theory does not have such a huge foundational problem. The logical apparatus is complete and coherent. Moreover SR can be derived as emergent from QT (and this is now proved), whereas nobody in my knowledge ever succeeded in doing the converse.

Cheers

Mauro

Mauro,

Thank you. I look forward to studying and discussing your Pavia axiomisation. Ref your query about my conclusions, I re-post my response here for your convenience; A single 'toy theory' does emerge, with the mechanisms. My previous two essays discussed other relevant aspects (both 7th in the scoring but both overlooked for an award).

Giacomo,

Thanks for looking. A number of conclusions emerge, possibly too dramatic to even 'see' at first, like the suggestion of our flat earth being spherical, but becoming entirely self apparent and logical once understood and assimilated.

1. Some fundamental assumptions are wrong. Nature is non-commutative (no A=A!)

2. A qubit caries more information than we ask of it, hidden in a higher order.

3. The EPR paradox may then be resolved as Bell believed, without spookyness.

4. Relativity and QM are then unified with only adjusted interpretation of both.

I agree with you the change to relativity is slightly greater, but only to the assumption that the QV can only have one 'absolute' rest frame. The postulates are proven via the quantum mechanism of scattering (CFS) at c. Close analogies with all QM interpretations seem to exist, including Copenhagen, via the proper definitions and logical application of 'detection' and 'measurement'. But you may hopefully advise on that?

Best wishes

Peter

Dear Mauro,

Let me just chip in a few lines here since you propose above... "My ontology is a space-time being a huge 3d digital screen made of quantum pixels".

Will the quantum pixel have 3d as well? What are the two states that the quantum pixel can occupy, that can give either a yes-or-no answer to? Do these two states lie at the "very deep bottom"?

By making up your huge space-time 3d digital screen, would the quantum pixel not have extension and 3d along with time attributes in one form or the other?

In short, though I hesitate to do so, will your quantum pixel not be 'monads', an idea that has crossed the minds of the Pythagoreans, Leibniz and even Wheeler (International Journal of Theoretical Physics June 1982, Volume 21, Issue 6-7, pp 557-572), who coined the term "elementary quantum phenomenon"? Or what can your quantum pixel do that monads or elementary quantum phenomenon cannot? I am looking at the possibility that each theoretical physicist refrains from using his own choice words to describe the same thing. Rather let us give the thing a name and discuss what and what it is or can do.

All the best. Found myself writing more than I planned.

Cheerio,

Akinbo

    Dear Mauro,

    Thank you for the above response. You are correct, I am a matter-realist (no offense). But I am not sure you understand how I conceive of matter. Rather than use your blog space to explain my theory, I will simply invite you read my essay. It may offer you a different perspective on matter.

    But you did not address my questions, except for the first. I do recognize that one needs to tell a tale to set the context. But you ask what is substance? In my theory the gravitational field is substantial (quite a few relativists agree with this) and it is not a pure abstraction as you indicate, but a reality that I feel this moment, as do you. Jump off a roof, and tell me that's abstract!

    You focus on Bohm's theory, but my theory is not Bohm's so the criticisms are only indirectly relevant. You are criticizing your understanding of quantum theory, not mine. You also ignored my point about quantum field theory.

    You say "we shouldn't be obsessed by our matter-realism, and we should keep our minds open to simplification of theories, and to a corresponding change of our intuition of how the world is made." My essay treats the simplest possible assumption of how the world is made. You might find it interesting, and I would be very interested in your comments. It looks at a new angle, as you suggest, and might provide you new insights. The Bell perspective is almost 50 years old now.

    From your essay and your answer, I conclude that Bell's theory is the basis of your view of reality. So I once again ask: Had Bell not lived to create his (possibly erroneous) inequality, is there ANY other argument by which physical experiments would "prove" non-locality?

    To sum up: you can 'peek inside this realist's mind' by reading my essay, and you can 'enrich your arguments' by answering the question about whether there is anything other than Bell's inequality that justifies your theory.

    Thank you for your patience and good humor.

    My best regards,

    Edwin Eugene Klingman

    Giacomo,

    John Bell's use of the term 'super-determinism' is another way of saying that determinism is predetermined. The findings of a 12 year experiment I have recently concluded has provided empirical evidence to substantiate that nature is absolutely deterministic in that its construct is predetermined.

    The evidence infers that no experiment can be conducted without a selection first being made. I find that physics focus on observed or measure effects and not its true cause. This tiny detail is what has prevented us from understanding reality. I hope you find time to review my findings:

    http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1809

    Best wishes,

    Manuel

    Dear Akinibo,

    the quantum pixels are quantum systems, such as qubits, without space-extensions, nor space-dimension, nor filling space in between. Space must emerge, not pre-exist. I really don't care much of introducing fancy names for impressing the audience. Quantum systems are quantum systems, that's it.

    Thank you also for the reference of Wheeler, I think I don't have it.

    My best regards

    Mauro

    ciao Mauro

    I wondered in the essay pages and I noticed that your essay was generating much discussion.

    After now looking at the essay I can see why: a particularly thought-provoking essay!!

    Unfortunately on this occasion I literally could not find time to produce an essay to contribute to the debate, but even from the essay I produced for the previous competition you can imagine that I am in resonance with the assertion

    that the notion of "physical object" is no longer logically tenable.

    I would perhaps slightly rephrase. The luxury of relying on a naive axiomatic notion of "physical object" is no longer affordable on the current frontiers of fundamental physics. At the very least it needs a proper scientific definition. I am happy to keep, at least as long as we are on the current frontier, an axiomatic notion of "detector" (or perhaps "detection"), but all other luxuries,

    first of all the spacetime-abstraction luxury but also the physical-object luxury, must be abandoned.

    Congratulations on this excellent essay!

    The debate might further heat up when/if Olaf Dreyer's essay will be posted: he told me he was thinking of possibly contributing an essay and from Olaf's description I would say it could be stimulatingly complementary to yours.

    Giovanni

    Dear Giovanni

    it is great to hear from you!

    Yes! it seems that the idea of the physical-object-as-logically-untenable is gathering consensus. It seems that I succeeded in convincing many people at least to have a try of our different view of the world. The "It from Bit" is now much more than just an ideology. It is a fact! With Paolo Perinotti we succeeded in deriving the Dirac equation as emergent from just quantum systems in interaction, with the only obvious requirements of homogeneity, isotropy, locality, and unitariety. And, at the same time, we hit two pigeons with one stone, getting a unified theory including also the super-relativistic regime and the Planck scale, a theory that embodies in a single unified framework your Doubly Special Relativity with an additional invariant energy, and yours and Smolin's relative locality. With Bibeau, Bisio, Perinotti and Tosini we are now writing a paper only on these topics. It is really very exciting to see how much new physics and phenomenology can emerge from just a bunch very general of principles.

    I'm sure also Olaf will like this a lot.

    My best regards

    Mauro

    Mauro,

    Thank you for your curiosity and for having an open mind. I found John Bell's 'super-determinism' description well worth exploring. The findings show that the 'metaphysical' reference you mention is derived from our 'interpretation' of reality which turns out to be culprit preventing us from obtaining the Theory of Everything as presented in my essay. I trust you may want to review the initial findings of the Tempt Destiny experiment as presented at the April, 2011, APS convention which served as the basis of my essay: PHYSICS OF PREDETERMINED EVENTS Complementarity States of Choice-Chance Mechanics

    I look forward to your review.

    Regards,

    Manuel

    Mauro,

    If given the time and the wits to evaluate over 120 more entries, I have a month to try. My seemingly whimsical title, "It's good to be the king," is serious about our subject.

    Jim

      Dear Giacomo,

      I agree with you, very interesting. I knew it partly because of my interest for hyerbolic geometry.

      Thanks

      Torsten

      Dear Mauro,

      With respect, but with Bell's theorem refuted, you need to examine the history of how it came to be called "a theorem." That was not Bell's fault.

      And, without deeper analysis of Bell's "theorem," I suggest that any "interpretation" by you and your team is likely to be ill-founded and just another addition to a growing list of such. For we must always recall that all Bell inequalities are refuted by experiments.

      In that my theory is wholly local and realistic AND non-contextual, you can see that it is a challenge to many interpretations, not just yours.

      About this from you,"let's judge people from outside." I would prefer to avoid a popularity contest and have you and your team address the high-school maths and logic on which my theory is based. Given that my results are fully supported experimentally, such action would of course challenge your opinion "that Quantum Theory is too rigid to be changeable just a little."

      But it is from such challenges that science progresses -- and the change that I make to Quantum Theory is very small indeed.

      Yet it is enough to eliminate the postulate that you suggest distinguishes the Quantum from the Classical; for that change relates to entanglement (after Schroedinger) and the measurement process (after von Neumann).

      PS: Whilst I much prefer open discussions, I am happy to continue this discussion privately if you or any member of your team so wishes.

      With best regards, and looking forward to your reply; Gordon Watson.

      Dear D'Ariano,

      One problem I have with the idea of "It" emerging from "Qubit" is that it presents a Zeno scenario, putting us in pain of infinite regress.

      How can you perform observation on THE PARTS of a holism for then it yet has parts:"local discriminability". For me you either arrive at "locality" (the parts) via non-locality (the whole) or vice versa.

      I assert that you cannot actually have the notion of a field without having the notion of an object for the field is only LESS OBJECT than some reference object.And vice versa.

      It does not seem to me that we can get anywhere without actually defining the wave function (for it is that blur between the it and the bit). Hard problem, but it IS the problem. Check me out on this if you can at: "What a Wavefunction is"What a Wavefunction is.

      Do your best to prove me wrong on this. It helps everyone think clearer.

      Chidi Idika